There was a time when I would have agreed but not anymore. I am more than willing to admit I might likely be burnt out as a fan. Too many excuses that enable losing year in and year out. In a very simplistic view, the reason it is tolerated is because the team makes money year in and year out.

BC is getting a lot of flak because it has been 5 years of the same shit with different parts surrounding the same centre piece with the same results.

Stability has hardly been equal to success or progress in Toronto.

Remember this thread title: #tradeBargnani #freeRaptorfans. Bargnani is everything this franchise should be moving away from.

Until BC does this, I have little faith in anything the organization does moving forward.

Toronto has never experienced stability. Not with this team at least!
Every year there is a wild change of direction (do you remember young guns for goodness sake?)
I think we've found the best direction with this roster than has been found on all other raptors rosters, save maybe the vince carter/oakley era.
If Bargnani is that consistent piece you're referring to, then I agree. HE MUST GE JETTISONED. Ive said it before, BC has until this offseason to accomplish it before I officially call major drafting bias.

Andrea Bargnani - so frustratingly inconsistent! not being the greatest defender but making his shots is bearable. Not making his shots and being outworked defensively is just unprofessional. Does he have off court issues? Is he really a good team mate? Is it time for a change of address for him?

Herb H, Whitby

A: Probably wished youíd held on to this after his 34 points Friday, I bet.

Maybe it's time we closed this thread. After 7500 posts, is there really anything new or insightful that can be said about Bargnani? We have literally witnessed every conceivable scenario, and discussed them all to death.

If Management isn't willing to sever the Bargnani tie, surely we as intelligent fans, can do our part.

No one can guarantee though, that a meaningful and 'BIG' change is equivalent to a better team.

I think teams that show they are willing to fall into their fans biopolar hysteria are the teams that continue to set themselves back multiple years before becoming contenders.
Having a new Coach every 4 years, new GM, new Star, new Focus, is dangerous for a team that needs a stable rebuild.

I agree that changes are necessary to adapt to a growing league, but those changes have to compliment what we've got, not destroy it.

BC gets a lot of flak, but I respect him for keeping his ground, admitting his mistakes, and attempting to fix them.
He should be held accountable for multiple instances of disproportional hyping in offseasons, but he has always attempted to find the best for the team.
I fell into the J.O and Hedo trap as well. Im sure many of us did. Can you really blame Bryant for Hedo not showing up after such an amazing playoffs?
J.O was a risk, and obviously didnt play out.
These were major set back in our franchise, and if you can overlook them, you'd see BC's genuine commitment to building this team right.

Of course Colangelo deserves the blame for those failures.

Jermaine O'Neal was injury prone for FOUR seasons before the Raptors traded for him. His production had already begun to bottom out. He went from being a 24 and 10 guy to a 13 and 7 player over the same time frame of those injuries. Part of being an effective executive is having the foresight to recognize these types of trends and acting accordingly, not just getting caught up in the fact that O'Neal had made a bunch of all-star games in his career. You can frame it as a risk that didn't work out or whatever, but that doesn't excuse Colangelo in the least.

Turkoglu had almost a decade of play in the NBA before he landed in Toronto. He was inconsistent or average for the majority of that time, with the exception of his last two seasons in Orlando when he coincidentally enough, stood to benefit immensely from signing a huge deal during his impending free agency. He was an ideal candidate to stop giving a shit once he got his pay day and what do you know - that is exactly what happened. Once again, I feel that Colangelo really lacked foresight and does not deserve to be excused.

Since when did "Well I didn't see that one coming!" become a legitimate excuse for ineptitude?

Jermaine O'Neal was injury prone for FOUR seasons before the Raptors traded for him. His production had already begun to bottom out. He went from being a 24 and 10 guy to a 13 and 7 player over the same time frame of those injuries. Part of being an effective executive is having the foresight to recognize these types of trends and acting accordingly, not just getting caught up in the fact that O'Neal had made a bunch of all-star games in his career. You can frame it as a risk that didn't work out or whatever, but that doesn't excuse Colangelo in the least.

Turkoglu had almost a decade of play in the NBA before he landed in Toronto. He was inconsistent or average for the majority of that time, with the exception of his last two seasons in Orlando when he coincidentally enough, stood to benefit immensely from signing a huge deal during his impending free agency. He was an ideal candidate to stop giving a shit once he got his pay day and what do you know - that is exactly what happened. Once again, I feel that Colangelo really lacked foresight and does not deserve to be excused.

Since when did "Well I didn't see that one coming!" become a legitimate excuse for ineptitude?

And to add to this, BC's intentions and level of commitment have nothing to do with anything. When evaluating a GM, the only thing that matters are wins. Everything else are excuses.

3 games in a row that he's shot the ball more efficiently. I hope he's starting to hit his stride and get him Lowry and Demar on the same page. Seems like it's always one or two of them on but never all 3. I'm gonna take some flak for this but that's on Lowry to get them both the ball where they need it to be successful. Lowry gets to touch it every possession so he'll get his opportunities but when Demar is going or Dre he's gotta keep it moving.

Or Colangelo told him: if you ever want to get out of here, you better start playing some good ball between now and December 15th.

I did put on my tinfoil hat writing that but as we've seen time and time again from Bargnani, he can turn it on and off at the flick of a switch.

GMs make risks and some dont work. My point about genuine intentions to make us better, is when Matt questioned the teams ability to continue to make money while losing as the reason our team fails to improve itself. I disagreed, and have always saw BC as an active GM that doesn't want to lose.
He admitted both his JO and Hedo mistakes and recovered by sending them off immediately, rather than show 'GM' pride in them.

Not really, because every GM in the league has good intentions. What ultimately matters is how successful they are at putting a winning team on the court and Colangelo has done a very poor job during his time in Toronto.

enlightenment wrote:

GMs make risks and some dont work. My point about genuine intentions to make us better, is when Matt questioned the teams ability to continue to make money while losing as the reason our team fails to improve itself. I disagreed, and have always saw BC as an active GM that doesn't want to lose.
He admitted both his JO and Hedo mistakes and recovered by sending them off immediately, rather than show 'GM' pride in them.

Of course Colangelo doesn't want to lose; What player/executive/owner in the NBA does? My point remains is that front office executives have never, and shouldn't be, judged on their intentions no matter how genuine they are. If that was the case, pretty much every terrible move in NBA history can be justified with the rationale of "I thought it would work out better than it did!"... Babcock certainly didn't think he was drafting a stiff when he opted for Hoffa, does he get a pass too?

You can give him credit for turning around and trading JO/Hedo so quickly after acquiring them, but that's just taking one step forward and then three steps back in my eyes and doesn't make me feel any better about the deals in retrospect.
We gave up Ford/Nesterovic/Hibbert on a rookie scale deal to get O'Neal and received a 2 and 1/2 month Shawn Marion rental in return for him when they traded him to the Heat (plus had to give up another first rounder to Miami just to get them to take a miserable JO off of our hands). That is a huge net loss for the franchise overall, and Colangelo was the man behind it on all sides.